Projections
by moonflowers-tea
Summary: Light's dreams are even more confusing than his reality, its comforting when the two blend.


Projections

AN: So this is centered on the second arc, which I'll admit it's not as familiar to me as the first arc, so it's pretty vague.

Feel free to correct me on grammar.

Warnings: This is a crossover but not much, couple of swear words, nonlinear narrative, second person, that's it.

* * *

" _Time, is never time at all_

 _You can never ever leave, without leaving a piece of youth"_

 _\\\_

* * *

Dawn has you seeing Misa, she shows you a list of names you don't read and tells you all of them are dead, the bad people are gone and the world is a little cleaner without their filthy existence. You tell yourself you're breathing better even though you are still dizzy.

You kiss her, thorns bloom from her tongue, and you swallow her blood. Silly girl, she keeps confusing words like love and obsession, speaks all her thoughts on one broken breath.

\

\

You function by mechanics, shower and eat and shit and work and speak.

(Not noticed but you do anyway: lay awake all night every night, lie to your mirror, ignore Shinigamis, plan for bloodless murders like it's a house chore, wonder if you'll ever be normal again).

You spend your mornings dazed in front of a blank computer, frozen on reports and rates of crimes; arson/theft/manslaughter/felonies.

Matsuda brings you fresh coffee, dark and expensive and you don't even question it, he probably thinks he's helping (this is what it's asked for him, always). You say thank you in a sleepy drawl, dragging your tongue and rolling it around the lie, you spill half of it on the waste basket and the rest you let it cool.

You lose weight, not much, but there is a haggardness to your face that you can't quite out eat, mixing poorly with the sternness of years and the hard lines that murder has left on your jaw, and you speak less and less with their weight.

\

\

You father's mustache goes gray overnight and his face goes warier, slacking where his concerned is dragged by exhaustion. He works half the hours that you do and you wonder how you look like, with time passed by.

Still handsome, still bright, still young, stillness so thick you suffocate.

You go home early that day, with your father driving the car and your head resting on the blackened window, all the windows are black now, there is fear in identity, and it's your fault.

Nobodyknowswhoyouare.

You kiss your mother on the forehead and help your sister with her homework. You watch TV and help make dinner and when your mother offers you your old bed you barely make it to the mattress, door ajar and clothes on you fall face first through the bed and the floor and concrete and all the layers of planet Earth and you feel so cold.

You don't sleep that night.

You leave before dawn and catch a nap before work.

\

\

Boredom got you out of your parent's house, murder kicked you out of school.

And now you're the kind of genius that doesn't have a degree, but there are callouses on your hands and fingers from so much writing writing writing.

\

\

Another night, another thought, this one you voice to Ryuk.

"What if you hadn't dropped the Death Note?"

"Hmmm" you haven't talked to him in so long he begins to feel a little neglected. As much as a Shinigami can feel with apple chunks between its teeth.

"I'd be bored shitless" he laughs, like he had recently discovered the comedic value of shit and fuck and balls. "What would you be doing Light-o?"

You don't even have to think about, and that's what it would be like wouldn't it. To not think as hard but have all the answers waiting for you, to not feel your heart thumping from your chest to your toes. Alive. "I'd be at school, on my way to a shining career at law enforcement" you don't let your eyes drop, you can see it so clearly now. "My dad would retire and Sayu would grow up with a family, I would take his place and ascend fast enough"

You'd be at the top before you hit thirty. And L would probably be dead before thirty too, small comforts.

\

\

Takada is only a better goddess by a few habits. Her kisses are dry and her lipstick doesn't smear, but she plays the games all the beautiful girls play when they think they can rule.

( _what would she do if she had the Note to herself, would this villain skin slip on her like a bespoke designer dress?)_.

Her face is on every screen you walk pass on the way to work, home, and the hotel you meet. She is prettier in person, thinner too, her skin soft and her hair dark.

Her edges blur, her voice drops and she tells you something that makes you shiver but can't understand.

Must not rest, it would be wrong, there's too much to do. The world needs you more than you need sleep ( _I understand now_ ), but she sees it anyway.

"Do you want to sleep a little while? we are in a hotel after all" she says between paused sighs, like she's suddenly very tired (of you).

"No" an uneven blink and you stumble your way out.

She doesn't believe in your promises, smart girl she is, and you think she founds you most charming when you rant about ideals and justice and the perfect world, the _Kira_ , you are between her parted thighs.

\

\

Miakmi's routine spells so many issues not yet passed Light can only be grateful for it, he is loyal and dutiful and only half mad.

If you were God Mikami would lift you a temple on steady ground and volatile weather, Takada will speak on your behalf and everyone will follow the clicks of her mouth, nod their head and believe, Misa will dance between the pews with flowers on her head, will light candles for your name every Sunday and sing just for you.

Careful what you do, because God is watching your every move.

\

\

You haven't seen your family in months, your father is always behind your back, and behind your eyelids but you never ever close them, so you haven't seen him either.

Sometimes, he puts a hand on your shoulder with barely any weight behind it, plenty of meaning, he means to say something, but he sighs and looks terrifyingly old.

 _Watch out for the heart_ , the doctors tell him, because he's stressed, he's in danger, when he's only trying to protect his family.

 _How could it all go so wrong_ , your father only wanted you to be your best, and you wanted that too, you wanted him to feel like you were the best.

Sometimes, on another sleepless night so much like the rest, you wonder what would have happened to you if they called you killer instead of Kira.

\

\

You would have burn them and feast on their ashes and found your nourishment in their marrows, and pray there better be a hell waiting for you (You made a deal with the devil and you won't let it back out).

\

\

 _Kira,_ you are on the other side of the phone.

 _Kira,_ you are on paper, and online, and on the hearts of everyone who has ever been wronged.

 _Kira,_ speak of the Devil, speak for the son, speaks the faceless entity that follows you like a shadow made man.

(not Ryuk, not Ryuk, you cannot not see his face hover above yours every time you try to rest), this is new you think, but it isn't, it knows you and you know it, clearly.

 _Kira,_ clings to you like a winter cough.

Kira was supposed to protect you.

\

\

You find him late at night, or early morning what have you.

Outside, the longest total solar eclipse is running to its end, but you only have eyes for the too bright screen before your eyes.

This is what you needed. This kind of genius that you don't see anymore. You want to try this invention.

It's almost corny. _Making dreams come true._

The PASIV device, and it's only the size of a suitcase.

\

\

You can almost regret killing the designer, because he was brilliant and you only wanted to tell him so. But, he had scoff at your face and had enough brains on him not to call you crazy on the spot (he looked nothing like _him_ but there was something about him, he could see you, accused you too, that made itched you for your pen). So he dies and you get the machine, and everyone is happy.

Stephen Miles dies on a rosy afternoon, stares at his killer's eyes and it is very much pain free, you are merciful after all.

\

\

Before the device, memories are all that you got.

You spend most of your working time picking them up and apart for clues and messages. Most of them you left for your own naive, memoryless self.

Something like betrayal taps at the shell of your ear before the string of litanies _only you could do it, create the perfect world._

You bury your memories then.

\

\

THE RULES

1\. If I'm there it's real, I'm the guy who invented the dreams, I can't be in them, the man says before you kill him, and it must be truth for you have never seen him again.

\

\

2\. You need a totem, to ground you.

Well, nothing does ground you better than the Note.

\

\

The construction is incredible. Buildings tall, straight lines up and down the lanes you walk on familiar shoes. You almost get caught in the details, exploring rooms you know by heart but are now seeing in a new light, brighter, almost technicolor, _so real so neat._

A piece of the Death Note is missing from your watch.

Dream.

Just to be sure.

\

\

3\. Don't ever go under alone, even with your totem sometimes is hard to wake up.

Or to reassure yourself you're awake.

\

\

"How many" you can barely recognize your voice

"One hundred and twenty two" Misa has not changed in all these years, voice ringing like crystal, ponytails, lace & leather. She pouts. "I would have written a lot more but my hand cramped"

Oh, there's a world of pain waiting for you you know.

"I'm bored Light" princess siting in a castle, her prince by her side, her prince is the king and the dragon and he wants her caged, what's a princess got to do but kill her way by his side.

"Let's go out Light"

It's a beautiful night, the moon casts a spell over your shoulders, your feet move and your mind stills, _moon god._

Definitely a dream.

(the note it's in its place, damn).

\

\

The headquarters look the same, cold and silver, only half authenticity in their echoes.

You built other rooms too. You childhood room with a plain black notebook on your desk, your school homework finished inside.

You're very little when you go to that room.

You apartment with Misa for some reason, even though she's never there, not even in dreams you want to go there.

Your old high school, deserted from spirits. You walk by the same spot you picked up the note and don't think about the what ifs. It's too dangerous here.

To-Oh is a little easier to get lost through, there's the cafeteria where you ache for something sweet, there's the long hallways where your feet don't leave a trace behind, the penrose stairs you spend hours in.

After not too long you find yourself always on the same place, the same chair, the same ghost. Halo of screens over his head, replaying all the things you've done in a loop, a shrine of your victories across his hands in manila files and notes and photographs.

\

\

You watch him work, nose buried in the back of his head, hair fluttering your heavy eyelids.

His eyes are red and his hands are steady, but his toes wiggle with caffeine overdrive.

You watch him speed read towers of files piled over and under the desk in a matter of nothing, discarding and compiling Kira related deaths with uncanny accuracy. His fingers dance like bone knifes over keys, eyes scanning every detail of the wall of screens, teeth crushing colorful treats, tiny teacup balancing on his fingertips with far too much grace.

You know what you are seeing but it is hard to acknowledge him as anything but a machine, as he is now, devouring and compiling and working when you want to hold him down and gouge his eyes with your teeth and keep him in a cage for you and only you.

It would not be hard to believe him a machine now, now that he had buried him and gloated over his grave and now he is here again, because somebody made a machine that could give him back to you.

\

\

4\. Outside stimuli can get you awake and steady, pain, water, heat, loud noises.

This is why is important to have a friend with you.

\

\

5\. The PASIV device is not for selfish use. It's not a cure to insomnia. It's too powerful for one man to have.

\

\

You know the device does little more than grasp at ideas in the air to create a familiar, comforting even, lucid dream.

It's not a cure to insomnia alright.

And putting so much effort into the dream makes you even more tired, but the kind that it's warm on your bones, more so than coffee.

\

\

Synchronized breaths, you, him.

When he's hungry you know and you both get up at the same time, the chain doesn't tangle, no word is utter.

L doesn't speak in here (he's always been sweeter in dreams), smiles lazily and blinks ever so slow.

You were dual and complimentary, two halves of the same different kind of human being, wrong for the other but fitting so well between his bones.

\

\

Things go smoother for you. You climb to the top of the NPA like you've always dream of.

You don't think your father will be so proud of you but that you swallow like it's bitter scotch.

\

\

6\. Do not live in the past. Do not dream of the past and think it's a life.

\

\

You can only close your eyes when he's watching, shoulders pale and naked for you and you only. You think about ballet when you see him like this, naked, graceful, movements like water, and strength coiled tight in that fragile body.

Even if he isn't real anymore, you know that.

Here lies danger, Light Yagami.

Unveiled, unclothed, bend but not broken at your will.

Here lies danger, here with the greatest detective in the world.

\

\

In here, with L, Light Yagami comes first.

Judgement, that comes later.

This is the only place.

\

\

The boys, Mello and Near, remind you so much of L.

Of fucking course.

Remind you of the living, pulsing parts of him that bring nostalgia out of you with a hook between the ribs.

"Are you secretly still alive?" you ask the wordless specter of you friend in dreams.

He has the decency to look at you in disbelief.

 _You killed me asshole,_ and a side of a wide eyed blink.

\

\

7\. I must warn you about the Limbo.

Why? What is that?

Unconstructed dream space. Infinite raw subconscious. Time is nonexistent. If you die on Limbo you'll either wake, or never will.

\

\

The successors ruin his reality, and even dare to invade him on his dreams.

He sees them in L's grey wide eyes. And if he won't stop looking at you with so much fucking disdain, you will kill him all over again, let him hit the floor and not leave him with the feeling of Kira's hands holding him up, swallowing his last breath. You wouldn't have let him see _you were right L, you were right I am…_

 _\_

 _\_

You haven't gone to your room, yours and his, since he died.

You're not even sure if you're dreaming or not.

You walked up the stairs and your wrist is **burning** but you dare not look at it.

You don't know if you'll see a ghost or a dream or if you've ever know the difference between the two. This morning had you drinking coffee on the edge of the bed staring at your laptop on sleeping mode, before the white noise you didn't know was coming from the speakers was interrupted by a whisper.

 _Try._

Ryuk is in the kitchen munching noisily enough through your apples that you wonder how you hear anything at all. If you heard it.

"Did you say anything?" you do not succeed to keep your frown out of your voice.

Ryuk laughs, the bastard.

"No, why? Did you hear something?" _Are you hearing things?_

You're migraine is splitting you in two. You think Ryuk didn't really come to Earth because he was bored. He was fucking exiled.

You might as well try.

You push the door open and it only creaks a little.

There's a storm outside, you haven't notice with the soundproof walls and the dawn to midnight hours.

The window is wide and curtain less, certainly not as you left it years ago.

There's no one here, the air is dusty, and it's so quiet.

The thunder flash the whole room in familiar shades, gives life to the objects and to you, you feel it coursing through you veins and behind your eyes and you know, everything is about to change.

So you move the machine there and spend most of your nights with your head where his head used to be and he feels a little closer.

\

\

It's only a dream, you spell to his hair. It must be, he doesn't even look at you and when was the last time you had that luxury.

When you wake the smell of his hair is on your pillow, he was just here, now, just a fraction of reflection and a ripple in reality that got you two separated.

\

\

The wall of screens is still there, most of them playing static, some of them play your thoughts on repeat, but you ignore this on most days, the files are ordered and there are very little photographs and you sit on L's chair.

L sits across from you with a bowl of sugar cubes in his hands, he waves at you like he did back at the university.

Your tea cup drops and shatters.

L crushes a cube between his teeth.

\

\

You try very hard not to acknowledge him at first.

You are not mean for this world, it's why I killed you.

You use all your energy not to withdraw at office hours, try very hard to ignore the movement of L's lips even when the voice is coming from inside your head.

 _That's not why_

Try with all your might to ignore what this means.

\

\

 _Everyone is running form something, have been since the inception of life._

 _\_

 _\_

The detectives at the task force do help, as loath as you are to admit that you're running this investigation in circles by yourself, they do help.

L has trespassed the blurry lines of your subconscious and conscious yet again. His presence is as steady as a gust of cold wind.

Then Mello takes his firs kidnapping victim in the form of an NPA director and your blood runs hot behind your cheeks.

Finally.

Someone, behind your ear, your team remarks that you haven't look so alive in a long time.

You turn to look at the empty space with a vague shape of L, his thumb on his mouth, he doesn't smile but he looks interested.

No chance in hell this is a dream.

\

\

Sayu is next ad he can almost hear her, her distress carries through his pages, and the wires he connects on his skull, and the motion of L's hands, the smoke of his coffee.

Help me. Help me you idiot, this is why you

This is why you fell from grace.

\

\

It might be kinder, to kill Sayu, kill your dad.

Let them not suffer and wither before your eyes.

You fiddle with the idea in mild discomfort before you get a punch to the gut, N shaped and monochrome.

L's hand is almost warm on your wrist, _so real,_

 _Trust_ , and you do.

\

\

"It's nice to finally meet the second L"

Oh fuck you.

It's true you haven't been the best L, you're taking way too long to kill them all, and if this successor is half as smart as L it would be easy to figure out.

L hasn't been a good L either, soundlessly haunting his prime suspect and only friend.

Ryuk laughs, L doesn't.

\

\

"Light Yagami was scared, so he gave his deviant behavior a new person crafted from his own body.

He didn't name it himself, and he wouldn't have if it hadn't been made so solid before his eyes.

He gave it his body and his hands, his independence, his freedom, his every thought.

His friends, his family, the future.

He fed it with black and white judgement and watch it grow and take control of something that was far out of everyone's hands."

 _You were controlled because you couldn't control yourself, Light. You did and you couldn't do it._

L's voice drones out, refocuses, and quietly leaves you with a smoke trail from his mute dream self.

You forget the sound of that voice a year after his death, long before you acquire the machine.

\

\

"We have a common goal, do we not? Retrieve the notebook and catch Kira"

No, no we don't.

\

\

"He's not deserving L"

L's head on your lap while you pet his hair, his nails are jagging the skin on your ankles in a secret message that you'll forget when you wake.

"He's not you"

He's but a pale mimic, but at least your sister is safe.

 _Near_ scratched on the tender skin of your ankle, tiny droplets of blood.

You wake, you forget.

\

\

Dead people don't speak.

They communicate with vibrations, glass clinking, gushes of air and ruffling of paper.

\

\

The drawings of Near and Mello are childish but neat.

You trace a finger over the rim of Mello's fringe, take in the coal like quality of Near's eyes. The potential is there, and it has simmer with the rage of you killing their leader along with it

L has come to the land of the living today, and unlike the detectives you work with, he's paying close attention to you.

"It took you to be literally on my face 24/7 to get evidence and self-reassurance about me, and yet you delete all your data and investigation for your successors."

 _What's your point_

L's image goes blurry and see-through in his anger, you can almost hear the rattle of the chain like bones between the chairs.

You turn to the task force, splayed thin and wary all around the office. This building is haunted you want to say to them, watch them go pale and wonder if what you see is what they see.

"My point is, I don't think you like these children much at all"

He won't allow them to get close to you like he did, they don't know you, your brilliance, they've never seen a Death Note, nor a Shinigami, and their method of approach is less to prove you are Kira and more to find and destroy the weapon that made you so.

"Shit, why is it so damn cold in here" one of the detectives, Mogi, has broken the silence that has been pestering them for far too long.

 **L is laughing.**

Smirk on his face, teeth showing kind of laughter. His figure ripples like a tv with bad signal.

The temperature takes a plunge to the Arctic, the lights dim and go blind bright, the door to the kitchen slams shut, papers fly off the desk, the moaning of wood sounds almost human, the wall of screen goes black and you see your face jaw slacked and freighted as you fall off your (L's) chair.

And then it's all over.

You are panting, frosted breath on your face.

 _Oh Light, they_ _ **will**_ _find you and they_ _ **will**_ _take the notebook. And I did help them._

"What the fuck was that!?" Aizawa cries from behind the lounge couch.

 _I put you on that chair, didn't I_

This place is haunted you mean to say to them, to the diminishing image of him.

"Get back to work" is what you say instead.

\

\

 _Having so much power makes you paranoid,_ says the ghost.

You like how you don't need to give L a voice to know what he means. You've always liked-admired-hated that part of both your brains. The part that got surgically separated when you were one before The Big Bang and reaches out incomplete synapses and atoms to you when you're close.

L bloodless hands ghost over your back in an attempt of a massage, in reality you fell asleep at the couch and your back muscles are already cramping. But reality is too far away and sometimes you extend your hand and L takes it and everything is like before except you sit on his chair and him on yours and no one can see it but you.

 _You start looking for danger everywhere. Every red light, every croon becomes a warning._

Last week, you took a train back to your apartment with Misa, a man whose face you watched but name can't remember talked to you, slurred and hungry. You could have taken another train but the intercom at the station crackled _Beware_ so you walked 25 minutes at night with your bag clutched to your chest.

The muscles in your back flex and shift, L adjusts, "It's alright, I killed him, and the next after that and the one that came after until none came"

The rubbing makes your muscles jelly, L's fingers pick them apart one by one, like he's playing a slow sensual piece in a piano and not calming your new found anxiety.

When you lie on your back, L's frozen face looks down on you and a little bit of it bubbles back to the back of your throat.

 _Sleep, Light._

Sleep is like missing a dead relative you saw twice in your life. L helps more than pills does, and sleep comes to you, falling to the pace of your heartbeats and hushing out those who don't respond to the name of Light Yagami.

\

\

 _Let me help you, it's the least I can do to atone for my sins._

Are you atoning to me?

 _For you_

You expected that answer, you should. Everything L doesn't say has been crafted from the afterimage in your mind.

 _I wanted to save you, because we're friends you know_

But L's arms are crossed on his chest and his chin held high, he's challenging you. Even when you've created him he's still mostly indecipherable.

\

\

Shinigamis swarm the Earth, nothing feels right anymore.

How many deathly books, how many gangly rippers, see-through bodies and laughter like chewing glass.

Your dad dies, ink and ashes beneath his fingertips, and you spend more and more time in dream land, your investigation resents it.

L doesn't, his spindly arms surround you and he mouths words against your skin, accusing you, blaming you, smoke fills your mouth and you gag.

In the end you leave him too, carve out the necrosis, large parts of you you rid.

Kira's ultimate sacrifice was Light Yagami.

\

\

You don't mourn your dad as much as you escape his shadow and his echo and everything you wished to be.

This is not the time to break down.

\

\

The machine gathers dust in the back of your closet, remains long forgotten.

So does L.

\

\

You'd be lying if you said this was the work of someone else. The work of the preternatural pumping through your veins, rewiring you and spelling sweet nothings from within.

You don't evade responsibility for your actions.

 _Well, about your father, that you avoid like the plague._

You just evade the wrongness of your actions, turn a blind eye to the holes in your logic.

\

\

You understand now why you wouldn't let L speak in your dreams.

You can't let him voice his horror.

Look at you.

Look at what you've done.

Shut up.

\

\

Things happen in barely a blink from there.

You juggle two boys handpicked by the very best, an increasingly suspicious task force, three minor Kiras, a new, if brainless Shinigami, more notebooks than you know what to do with.

You kind of want your dad.

\

\

Money rains

Near escapes

Misa gets arrested and then not

Takada gets kidnapped, but she's got her head leveled and does one good thing before she goes up in flames

Near is more trouble than he is worth

Plans are made, meetings arranged

\

\

WAREHOUSE

It's so painful to break down

DO NOT SMILE, DO NOT SMILE, DO NOT!

You're free

\

\

9 gunshot wounds, by Touta Matsuda

You could laugh if you weren't in so much pain

 _(haven't you laughed enough)_

L would, at the very least turned upside the corner of his lips in childish amusement.

Oh, it's like he was summoned.

\

\

L is a vision of blue jeans and a gentle smile (not mocking, never)

How painful this is, too painful to be a dream.

Are you here?

Your words don't work anymore, and this you know is a side effect from death.

Am I dead?

Pleading eyes turn to the piece of paper strapped to your wrist.

A voice stops you, it is the single most exquisite thing you've heard in four years.

" _Trust me"_

 _\_

 _\_

L's hands are very full of a black, thin notebook. The Death Note.

The one Near held.

This is resolution.

L writes, Light writhes. _Moon God, dies of a heart attack in peace, January 28_ _th_ _2010._

Nine holes on his chest.

\

\

 _I can't bear the thought of you in prison._

 _\_

 _\_

* * *

I can't believe there are no more Inception AUs/crossovers, like there's so much potential other than this mess, so think about it, let me know.

Fun fact! There was a solar eclipse on July 2009, fitting with the I think the anime time line? It was big deal.

 _I wanted to save you, because we're friends you know_ is taken right out of the drama because it killed me.

Thanks for reading.


End file.
